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Once Upon A City: A ‘Promised Land’ for slaves on the run

Toronto and Oakville were among key Ontario’s key stop on the Underground Railroad

Albert Jackson, an escaped child slave, and his family, stayed briefly with Thornton and Lucie Blackburn upon arriving in Toronto. Jackson became Toronto’s first black postman and is shown here with the Toronto Letter Carriers. When Jackson showed up for work as a mailman on May 17, 1882, the letter carriers refused to show him the rounds because he was black. The incident, reported by the press, wrote about “the obnoxious coloured man.” The black community was galvanized by the injustice and took their demands to then Prime Minister John A. Macdonald. Luckily, it was election year and wanting to placate the black voters, Macdonald intervened. (courtesy Library and Archives Canada and Toronto's First Post Office)

When Albert Jackson showed up for his first day of work as a mailman, other letter carriers refused to show him the rounds because he was black. The issue became a story in the Evening Telegram on May 17, 1882, headlined The objectionable African. (TORONTO STAR)

Faith Jackson, widow of Albert Jackson’s grandson, and Patrick Crean shown at his home in Toronto in 2012. After publishing Karolyn Smardz Frost’s book, "I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad," Crean learned that the home he currently lives in on Brunswick had been owned by Albert Jackson in the early 1900s. That home is where Faith Jackson raised her family. (Aaron Harris / Toronto Star)

A Blackburn taxi photographed in front of the Scadding Cabin, the oldest surviving home in Toronto, in 1895. Thornton and Lucie Blackburn settled in Toronto in 1834, and started the city’s first taxicab business. By 1847 the couple owned six houses and offered quarters to former slaves at a nominal rent. (: York Pioneer and Historical Society Archives)

Abolitionist George Brown helped launch the career of William Peyton Hubbard after Hubbard rescued Brown from drowning in the Don River. Hubbard, photographed here at the age of 89 in 1931, was the first person of African descent on Toronto’s City Council. Hubbard, a baker by trade, was first elected in 1894, served on the council for 15 years and was responsible for passing almost 100 civic initiatives. (CITY OF TORONTO ARCHIVES)

One of the Fathers of Confederation and founder of what is now the Globe and Mail, George Brown was also a fierce supporter of the abolitionist movement and friend of Thornton Blackburn. (TORONTO STAR ARCHIVES)

A fugitive slave notice seeking Thornton Blackburn appeared in the Louisville Public Advertiser on July 7, 1831.
Credit: from Karolyn Smardz Frost’s I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land
(TORONTO STAR)

The Turner African Methodist Episcopal Church, in Oakville, opened in 1892 and is photographed here in 1908. Freed and runaway slaves established the first A.M.E. Church in Canada in 1833 in Toronto, with members meeting in people’s homes. One of these historic churches still stands just west of Toronto at 37 Lakeshore Rd. W., Oakville. The Turner Chapel served as a community centre for Afro-American immigrants, as well as a place of worship. It now houses antiques. (CITY OF TORONTO ARCHIVES)

This illustration shows the Toronto shoreline in the 1830s, when Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, who'd escaped from slavery in Kentucky, arrived in a city that was undergoing a burst of growth. (TORONTO STAR ARCHIVES)

Thornton and Lucie Blackburn settled in Toronto in 1834, and started the city’s first taxicab business. By 1847 the couple owned six houses and offered quarters to former slaves at a nominal rent. John Gillespie's A View of King Street, Toronto, shown here, pictures the major thoroughfare in the mid-1840s, with what appears to be Thornton Blackburn's cab headed down the street. (ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM)

Old city of Toronto fire insurance maps show the location of the British Methodist Episcopal church on west side of Chestnut St. (formerly Sayer St.), as well as buildings in surrounding area. The area once known as Macauley Town was later known as St. John's Ward (or "the Ward") and was Toronto's first immigrant neighbourhood. Many African Americans fleeing slavery via the Underground Railroad settled there. (Toronto Star)

Martin Luther King Jr. perhaps said it best. “Canada is not merely a neighbour of Negroes,” he remarked in 1967. “Deep in our history of struggle for freedom, Canada was the North Star.”

Mary Ann Shadd, Samuel Ringgold Ward, William Hubbard, Thornton and Lucie Blackburn, Albert Jackson — these are but a few of the blacks who escaped slavery, or were born to fugitives who sought freedom by following the Underground Railroad and the North Star to the “Promised Land.”

They shaped the Toronto we know today: they published newspapers, served as the city’s first black councillor, founded Toronto’s first taxi company and became Toronto’s first black postman.

The Underground Railroad was a covert network of abolitionists aiding African-Americans in their escape from enslavement in the American South. The 1850 African Slave Act allowed slave catchers to pursue fugitives in the Northern U.S. states. This increased the number of freedom-seekers who touched onto Canadian soil before American slaves were emancipated in 1863.

Slavery was outlawed in Canada in 1833 and the Underground Railroad brought 30,000 to 40,000 fugitives to British North America (Canada). Between 1850 to 1860 about 15,000 to 20,000 escaped slaves reached Upper Canada.

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But if Canada gave them freedom, it did not always offer acceptance. In one letter to The Toronto Times in 1857, Col. John Prince — then a prominent member of Ontario’s Legislative Council — let loose his venomous pen. Blacks were “necessary evils, only submitted to because white servants are so scarce,” he wrote.

But for every critic, there was support for those who relied on the good fortune of sympathizers to find freedom. Toronto proved a hotbed of abolitionist activity.

On Feb. 26, 1851 George Brown founded the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada in Toronto. The noted abolitionist was publisher of the Globe newspaper and later a Father of Confederation. Regular meetings of the Anti-Slavery Society were held at the St. Lawrence Hall, a Renaissance Revival style building at 157 King St. W.

On Sept. 10, 1851, prominent U.S. and Canadian abolitionists, including Frederick Douglass, gathered here to attend the North American Convention of Colored Freemen. They debated how to end slavery and passed a resolution, calling the present day Ontario, “by far the most desirable place of resort for coloured people, to be found on the American continent.” (Jamaica came second.)

One of the convention attendees was Mary Ann Shadd, destined to become the first black newspaperwoman in North America. Shadd was born to free parents in Delaware, a slave state. Her parents’ home was a “safe house” stop along the Underground Railroad. Shadd settled in Sandwich (now Windsor) Ont. in 1851, and established a racially integrated school for black refugees. She went on to publicize the successes of black persons living in Canada through the Provincial Freeman, which encouraged blacks to immigrate to Canada.

The weekly anti-slavery newspaper was first printed on March 24, 1853 and was co-edited by Samuel Ringgold Ward, a well-known public speaker and escaped enslaved person living in Toronto. The paper was published in Windsor, then Toronto (1854 to 1855) and then Chatham. According to City of Toronto records, about 1,500 black people lived in Toronto at that time.

Brown helped launch the career of William Peyton Hubbard after Hubbard rescued Brown from drowning in the Don River. Hubbard was the first person of African descent on Toronto’s City Council. Hubbard, a baker by trade, was first elected in 1894, served on the council for 15 years and was responsible for passing almost 100 civic initiatives. He was born in Toronto to former American slaves, who had escaped from Virginia via the Underground Railroad.

In 1985, the Toronto Star reported on the first Afro-Canadian archeological excavation in Ontario, which would reveal the life of Toronto’s first cabbie. The dig was at the corner of Sackville St. and Eastern Ave., under the playground of the board’s oldest continuously functioning school at 19 Sackville St. (now Inglenook Community High School).

The site held the former demolished home of Thornton Blackburn and his wife Lucie. The Blackburns were slaves who escaped from Kentucky in 1831, settling in Toronto in 1834. The couple started the city’s first taxicab business — a red and yellow horse-drawn carriage that seated four.

The five-month dig, led by then Toronto Board of Education archeologist Karolyn Smardz, uncovered the fragile foundations of a horse barn, where the cab was stored, and such belongings as a pearl-handled pocket knife, brass pocket watch and simple jewelry.

Blackburn leased the then-rural property north of Eastern Ave. in 1834 and purchased it in 1842. By 1847, the couple owned six houses. The Blackburns paid it forward by offering living quarters to former slaves at a nominal rent. They also helped construct the Little Trinity Anglican Church, a Tudor Gothic building at 425 King. St. E., which is the oldest surviving church in Toronto.

Those who stayed briefly with the Blackburns in 1834 included Albert Jackson, an escaped child slave, and his family. Jackson became Toronto’s first black postman, as chronicled in Karolyn Smardz Frost’s book, I’ve Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad (2007).

When Albert Jackson showed up for work as a mailman on May 17, 1882, the letter carriers refused to show him the rounds because he was black. The incident, reported by the press, wrote about “the obnoxious coloured man.” The postal service reassigned Jackson to the lowly job of hall porter.

The story was fervently discussed in the city’s newspapers. The black community was galvanized by the injustice and took their demands to then Prime Minister John A. Macdonald. Luckily, it was election year and wanting to placate the black voters, Macdonald intervened.

Jackson’s legacy lives on. Strangely enough, the publisher of Frost’s book on the Underground Railroad, Patrick Crean, learned in 2012 that the house he lived in on Brunswick Ave. was once owned by Jackson. Crean proposed the neighbourhood laneway be named Albert Jackson Lane (officially unveiled in July 2013).

The African Methodist Episcopal Church had its beginnings in 1816 in Philadelphia. Freed and runaway slaves established the first African Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada in 1833 in Toronto, with members meeting in people’s homes. The A.M.E. Church in Toronto had various locations over the years, with its site at 21 Soho St. serving the black community from 1928 to 1988. The congregation sold the property in 1988 to Wittington Properties Ltd. and the historic building was demolished, with members moving to a Gerrard St. location.

But one of these historic churches still stands just west of Toronto at 37 Lakeshore Rd. W., Oakville. The Turner Chapel, established in 1892, served as a community centre for Afro-American immigrants, as well as a place of worship. It now houses antiques.

Many are unaware that Oakville played a pivotal role in the Underground Railroad. The town became the official Port of Entry for Canada in 1834, and hundreds of escaped slaves were smuggled across the Great Lakes in grain vessels. One of these slaves, James Wesley Hill, crossed into Canada in a packing box in the late 1840s. He settled on a farm near Oakville and found employment for many escaped slaves by providing them with work on his strawberry farm.

Hill made several trips back to Maryland, leading an estimated 700 to 800 African-Americans along the Underground Railroad to Oakville. At the foot of Oakville’s Navy St. overlooking Lake Ontario sits Erchless Estate, built in 1856. It houses the old Custom House and the estate operates as part of the Oakville Museum (www.oakville.ca/museum/index.html ). There, visitors can see a permanent multimedia exhibit: The Underground Railroad: Next Stop, Freedom.

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